Families

On 6 December 2010, Continental Airlines was found criminally responsible for the disaster by a Parisian court and was fined € 200,000 and ordered to pay Air France € 1 million. Continental mechanic John Taylor was given a 15-month suspended sentence, while another airline operative and three French officials were cleared of all charges. The court ruled that the crash resulted from a piece of metal from a Continental jet that was left on the runway; the object punctured a tyre on the Concorde and then ruptured a fuel tank. Another Continental employee, Stanley Ford, was found not guilty. Continental’s lawyer, Olivier Metzner, said it would appeal the verdict.

The court also ruled that Continental would have to pay 70% of any compensation claims. As Air France has paid out € 100 million to the families of the victims, Continental could be made to pay its share of that compensation payout. Source – Wikipedia

Here is a look back at the Lockerbie tragedy that happened on December 21st, 1988, the release of the “dying-still-living” bomber, the partnership between Libya and the UK, and more in two videos to understand further:

“There is no doubt, there is nothing equivocal, there are no ambiguities. What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong.” said the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland in the House of Commons this afternoon.

Also, he added:

“I know that some people wonder whether, nearly 40 years on from an event, if a prime minister needs to issue an apology.

For someone of my generation, Bloody Sunday and the early 1970s are something we feel we have learnt about rather than lived through. But what happened should never, ever have happened. The families of those who died should not have had to live with the pain and the hurt of that day and with a lifetime of loss.

Some members of our armed forces acted wrongly. The government is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the armed forces and for that, on behalf of the government, indeed, on behalf of our country, I am deeply sorry. ”